Texas Tech basketball set to take on West Virginia in Big 12 Tournament

The Texas Tech basketball team will begin its run in the Big 12 Tournament tonight by taking on the lowest seeded team in the field, West Virginia.

Tonight, Texas Tech basketball fans will get one last opportunity to complain about and ridicule one of the most polarizing head coaches in the game.  When Texas Tech takes on West Virginia at 6 p.m. in the second round of the Big 12 Tournament, social media platforms everywhere will once again be filled with Red Raider fans mocking the Mountaineer’s curmudgeonly head coach, Bob Huggins, with every gif and meme imaginable, which will make for some extra entertainment.

But will the actual game be entertaining?  The stats would indicate that it will not.   After all, Tech enters as a 14-point favorite after sweeping the regular season series.

2019 could not have been more of an opposite adventure for the Red Raiders and Mountaineers. After both made it two the second weekend of last year’s NCAA Tournament only to have their runs ended by eventual national champion Villanova, both lost most of the key contributors from 2018.

Tech reloaded with grad transfers Matt Mooney and Tariq Owens and combined them with a vastly improved Jarrett Culver and Davide Moretti to earn a share of the Big 12 regular season title.  Meanwhile, WVU was rocked by injuries and defections leading to a last-place finish in the conference.

But the first time these teams met, Tech had to squeak out a 62-59 win in Morgantown.  In what was one of the most difficult games to watch this season because of the 50 combined fouls, Jarrett Culver scored all 18 of his points in the second half leading to a locker room celebration that angered Huggins but sent the Red Raiders to 1-0 in Big 12 play with their first ever win at WVU.

A month later, Tech handed Huggins his worst Big 12 loss ever in an 81-50 drubbing that will be remembered as much for the ejection of WVU’s Logan Routt, who tripped Matt Mooney from the Mountaineer bench, as anything else.

On the court, Brandone Francis led the way with 16 points on 7-10 shooting from the field.  That was only two fewer made field goals than West Virginia had as a team, which equaled a conference mark for futility.

Now, Tech will look for its third win of the year over a Mountaineer team that has been rebuilt on the fly during confine play.  Gone are Huggins’ two best players, Esa Ahmad and Wesley Harris, after both were dismissed from the team for violating team rules last month. Likewise, junior guard Beetle Bolden left the team after last week’s win over Iowa State.

Now, the Mountaineers are relying on a youth movement built around freshman center center Derek Culver who is averaging a double-double.   Likewise, freshman guard Jordan McCabe is emerging as the Mountaineers’ top guard.  He scored 15 in Wednesday’s win over Oklahoma which has him brimming with confidence.  And he should be after averaging 16.5 points per game in his last six contests.

Additionally, the underdogs could be buoyed tonight by the possible return of their best big man from last year, Sag Konate.  Multiple outlets report that he might play for the first time in nearly three months after missing most of the season with a knee injury.

When healthy, Konate is a force in the paint.  He averaged 13.6 points and 2.8 blocks in his eight games this season.  But it will be interesting to see what he can provide his team tonight and one must wonder what sense it makes to put him back on the court for what most expect to be his team’s final game of the year.

But that return could add a new element of intrigue to a game that just feels like it will be closer than the stat sheet suggests it should be.  Let’s take a look at what the Red Raiders need to do tonight to avoid being upset by the last-place team in the Big 12.